Monday, May 14, 2012

Don't Read Too Much Into "Merkel's" Weekend Loss in North Rhine-Westphalia

From The Economist:

IT IS easy to get carried away with the results of
yesterday's election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most
populous state. It was the worst ever performance in the state for the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which governs Germany and is headed by
Angela Merkel, the chancellor. It was a triumph for the Social
Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, who will continue to govern the
state, this time with a clear majority in the Landtag (state
parliament).

Surely, say some, this is part of the left-wing, anti-austerity wave
that swept François Hollande into the French presidency on May 6th and
could knock Mrs Merkel out of power when Germany votes in the federal
election in September 2013. Maybe Mr Hollande should be flying to
Dusseldorf tomorrow to meet Hannelore Kraft (pictured), NRW’s re-elected
premier, rather than to Berlin to see Mrs Merkel.

This is a
little premature. The main reason for the CDU’s poor showing in NRW was
not Mrs Merkel or her advocacy of Europe-wide austerity, but the awful
campaign conducted by the party’s chief candidate, Norbert Röttgen, who
is also the German environment minister. Mr Röttgen dithered about
whether he would return to Berlin if he lost, which made his commitment
to NRW look half-hearted. At one point, to Mrs Merkel’s horror, he
claimed that the vote was a referendum on her management of the euro
crisis. His Berlin colleagues quickly slapped him down....MORE